PAX West 2016: 60 Seconds! Preview – Pop Quiz Hot Shot, You Have a Minute Before The Nuke Hits

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60 Seconds! Preview

It’s the 1950’s and the unthinkable has just been announced: An atomic bomb is about to strike and you only have 60 seconds to gather your belongings. Not only do you have the limited time to gather supplies and head to your bunker, the player is also forced to choose between not only what items to bring but also who.

This game is about quick thinking and strategy. What do you need to survive the bomb? Do you risk your precious seconds finding your beloved family members? What about provisions for yourself? Or do you just decide to drop everything and just save your cat?

Developed by Robot Gentlemen, 60 Seconds is divided into two different stages. The 60 seconds you have for gathering necessities and family members, and the survival mode, where you have to stay alive long enough to be rescued by the military.

Scavenge mode is certainly the highlight of 60 Seconds!. It’s unpredictable, fast and a bit frustrating as you control Ted, the protagonist in this game, to locate what you need. As your playing a very normal man who has lived a very normal, you can imagine he isn’t the fastest man. His movements are very lethargic and if you crash into any furniture, he becomes even slower so it is quite important to be swift, but also to steer clear of objects that will slow you down as you can only carry so many items at a time. The best part of Scavenger mode is how replay-able it is as every time you choose to play, the house will be randomly generated making each play through as challenging, than the last.

In a 3D environment, you use the WASD keys and grab items by left clicking in your mouse. The controls are not all that responsive, which is good because it is what makes the game that much more difficult. While collecting and grabbing items, you’ll also find there are some items you cannot grab while trying to scavenge. For example there are two different radios that you will find, however only one of them you can actually take with you as an item for the bunker and the other you cannot as it is considered a piece of furniture.

Alright, 60 seconds is up and now we’re in the shelter. The 3D space is now a 2D scene and is your job to ration the foot/water, send expeditions out and react to random events. In this mode, you interact with your surroundings mostly by journal entries. You’ll receive information on what has happened the day before and what your family members will need that day. Eventually you’ll be able to choose who is going on an expedition and finally you’ll get a random event that you can interact with if you have the proper item in the shelter.

60 Seconds! is quite fun and while it has a great level of replay-ability, it’s not a game you can spend more than a few hours playing as scenes, especially in Shelter mode, can get a little boring. The art style; however, is vibrant and very cartoony which brilliantly highlights the comedy aspects of the game. Despite the well written script, the fun gameplay and the vibrant cartoony art style, 60 Seconds! only has one music track implemented in the game which could annoy or bore some players.